A building or dwelling having an efficient solar heating system and an aesthetically pleasing design whose cost is not economically unreasonable has been the goal of many efforts.
As a prerequisite to economical use of solar energy for heating, it is necessary to provide a low-cost, efficient, and trouble-free solar energy collector to capture such energy in the form of heat. Also, it is necessary to provide a low-cost, trouble-free, and effective heat storage and retrieval means to store the heat trapped by the collector and to deliver the heat to the building from the heat storage mass when needed.
To reduce the amount of heat loss to the ambient environment, the window area of the exterior walls of the structure should be kept to a minimum or even eliminated. But the lack of exterior light and viewing, generally, provides a less than aesthetically pleasing environment. Some building designs have minimized the external window area of the building and have provided a sky-light for heating an enclosed area and aesthetic purposes. For example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,894,369 and 3,815,299 by Schmitt et al. and Sorenson et al., respectively. Others have employed various solar collection and heating systems of one type or another in buildings in an effort to conserve our natural resources. For example, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,254,702 and 3,412,728 by Harry E. Thomason. Yet, the need for a low-cost, efficient, aesthetically pleasing building having solar heating persisted.